Advanced Courses

ESMO-ESO Courses on Medical Oncology for Medical Students

These annual five-day residential courses enable students to get a full picture of this challenging and interesting professional field before making the choice of their specialisation.

Preceptorship Courses

Apply now to join one of our Preceptorship courses!

Workshops & Courses

ESMO fosters the advancement of cancer research by supporting clinical trials workshops to inspire young oncologists from different disciplines across the globe to become the next generation of active researchers.

Patient Guides

Guides for Patients are designed to assist patients, their relatives and caregivers to better understand the nature of different types of cancer and evaluate the best available treatment choices

Personalised Medicine Explained

Video interviews and articles designed to help patients, policy makers and other non-medical professionals better understand the principles of personalised cancer medicine

Getting the Most out of Your Oncologist

Now available in Romanian, our Guide for Patients with Advanced Cancer is designed for patients, their family members and oncologists.

Designated Centres of Integrated Oncology and Palliative Care

The ESMO Designated Centres of Integrated Oncology and Palliative Care accreditation programme recognises cancer centres which provide comprehensive services in supportive and palliative care as part of their routine care.

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Policy News

Welcome to OncologyPRO, the home of ESMO’s educational and scientific resources, with Guidelines, a comprehensive list of E-Learning modules, Factsheets on biomarkers, slides and webcasts from our educational programme, and more... to support continuing medical education and daily practice!

Dr Pasi Jänne from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, presented the findings in a Late-Breaking Abstract presentation yesterday (Abstract LBA47_PR). He noted that despite observing a significant improvement in PFS and response with the MEK1/2 inhibitor combination in an earlier phase II study,1 the phase III data were disappointing in this KRAS-mutant population that is associated with a particularly poor prognosis and is notoriously difficult to treat. Median PFS was 3.9 months with selumetinib plus docetaxel and 2.8 months with placebo plus docetaxel (hazard ratio 0.93; 95% confidence interval 0.77–1.12; p=0.44). Similarly, the combination did not show a significant effect on overall survival, while a trend towards a higher objective response rate was observed with selumetinib compared with placebo (20.1% versus 13.7%; odds ratio 1.61; p=0.051). The selumetinib plus docetaxel combination was associated with a higher incidence of grade ≥3 adverse events (AEs), serious AEs, and AEs leading to hospitalisation compared with the docetaxel arm.

Selumetinib was granted Orphan Drug Designation by the US FDA in May 2016 for the adjuvant treatment of thyroid cancer and is being further investigated as an adjuvant treatment option for high-risk thyroid cancer (for its capacity to re-sensitise tumour cells to radioactive iodine) and other tumour types.